Time: the Biggest Pattern in Natural History Research
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Evol Biol (2016) 43:604–637 DOI 10.1007/s11692-016-9394-3 SYNTHESIS PAPER Time: The Biggest Pattern in Natural History Research Nathalie Gontier1 Received: 11 October 2016 / Accepted: 13 October 2016 / Published online: 28 October 2016 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract We distinguish between four cosmological Keywords Cosmology · Cosmogony · Matter · Space · transitions in the history of Western intellectual thought, Time · Time’s cycle · Time’s arrow · Periodicity · and focus on how these cosmologies differentially define Evolutionary epistemology matter, space and time. We demonstrate that how time is conceptualized significantly impacts a cosmology’s notion on causality, and hone in on how time is conceptualized Introduction differentially in modern physics and evolutionary biology. The former conflates time with space into a single space– Humans distinguish themselves from other biological time continuum and focuses instead on the movement of organisms by developing intellectual knowledge on the matter, while the evolutionary sciences have a tradition to world. The intellectual thoughts that we developed underlie understand time as a given when they cartography how cosmology-formation and in so far as they have been organisms change across generations over or in time, materialized in writings, we can reconstruct the genealog- thereby proving the phenomenon of evolution. The gap ical trajectories of our intellectual schools of thought. From becomes more fundamental when we take into account that historical research, we know that western intellectual phenomena studied by chrono-biologists demonstrate that thought transitioned from naturalistic (sometimes called numerous organisms, including humans, have evolved a animistic) to theistic to scientific cosmologies, and con- “sense” of time. And micro-evolutionary/genetic, meso- gruent notions on causality have been called holistic, evolutionary/developmental and macro-evolutionary phe- reductionist and statistical or interactional. Such analyses nomena including speciation and extinction not only occur mostly focus on how cosmologies differentially define by different evolutionary modes and at different rates, they matter and space. Here we analyze instead how the various are also timely phenomena that follow different periodic- cosmologies define time and how this impacts their ideas ities. This article focusses on delineating the problem by on causality. finding its historical roots. We conclude that though time The ancient Greeks endorsed a circular time notion that might be an obsolete concept for the physical sciences, it is was linearized by Judeo-Christian traditions that under- crucial for the evolutionary sciences where evolution is stood time as a sequence of historical events that have a defined as the change that biological individuals undergo unique cosmogonic beginning and a clear and known in/over or through time. eschatological ending. This linear view of time became “scientified” by the natural history scholars who, inspired by the invention of the pendulum and the automated, me- chanical clock, understood time first as a natural law-like & Nathalie Gontier phenomenon and later as absolute. [email protected] Today, the evolutionary sciences understand time both as an axis whereon or whereby they map phylogenetic 1 Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, Centre for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, speciation events in a Cartesian two- or three-dimensional Portugal coordinate system, and they understand (knowledge of) 123 Evol Biol (2016) 43:604–637 605 periodicity either as a trait or a characteristic present in the We demonstrate that these transitions in cosmologies (life) cycle of many biological individuals (including and their accompanying cosmographies can be explained in organisms but also species). Modern physics on the con- correlation with advances made in how we, as a species, trary has come to question the existence of time by treating have mastered knowledge on the nature of matter, space time and space as a single continuum and reducing time to and most of all time. How we understand matter, space and the study of motion. Different notions of time therefore time (ontologically) in turn depends upon how we con- underlie a fundamental gap between current physical and ceptualize and calculate the latter (epistemologically) from evolutionary sciences. The primary aim here is to develop a within cultural traditions including scientific ones, and by better understanding of the problems associated with the making use of natural and mathematical languages. For (in)existence of time. This already results in a lengthy these reasons, cosmologies impact how we define causality, contribution and we therefore end the article with briefly and we will examine how and why our notions on causality outlining three suggestions on how time can remain a valid have transitioned from being understood as cyclical to concept for the evolutionary sciences. linear to mechanical and multidirectional. In what follows, we outline these different cosmologies and cosmographies and focus in particular on how they The Four Western Cosmologies define time and causality differentially. While this by and large implies an analysis of philosophical and scientific Cosmologies or worldviews provide epistemological thought, and though I am a philosopher of science, this frameworks for understanding the ontology or metaphysics paper is also written from within my background as a of the universe which translates into philosophizing on the comparative cultural anthropologist. This means that my nature of existence by providing theories on matter, space aim is to compare and thereby understand the differences and time. Transitions in intellectual history underlie between the cosmologies and to outline their historical changes in cosmologies and we distinguish between four trajectories, more than it is to represent them from within such major transitions in western schools of thought. The the specific doctrines involved. Given the large scope of classic Greek cosmology transitioned into the Judeo- this article, it is also not my aim to give full details on the Christian cosmology that was overthrown by the rise of various doctrines involved, but to find their underlying classical physics and natural history schools. We will argue structures and the transitions they underwent. that the latter are currently transitioning into a new and rising cosmology brought forth both by modern physics and modern evolutionary biology (Table 1). The Intellectual Structure of Greek Cosmologies One way we examine these transitions is by analyzing the cosmographies that depict the intellectual patterns that Cosmologies explain the nature of existence by providing structure cosmologies. The ancient Greeks patterned the theories on matter, space and time. Western cosmologies cosmos into wheels of time, chains of being and cycles of still track back to those of the ancient Greeks that com- “coming and becoming” that transitioned into Judeo- mence with the writings of the pre-Socratics and that Christian scala naturae or stairways to heaven as well as culminate with the works of Plato and Aristotle. I will historical chronologies on creation, that in turn transitioned focus on these latter two scholars, and I will do so exten- into scientific tree and network diagrams that model and sively, because they were the most influential for cartography aspects of the evolving cosmos. intellectual thought as it would develop in Judeo-Christian Table 1 Summary of the four transitions in the intellectual history of western thought, their different notions of time and their associated concepts of causality Cosmology Ancient Greeks Judeo-Christians Classical physics and Modern physics and evolutionary natural history biology Cosmographies Wheels of time and Scala naturae and Timelines and trees Trees and networks chains of being timelines Time (Once created) eternal Cosmogonic and Linear and multi-linear Inexistent or multiple and circular/cyclical eschatological and multi-directional True versus relative Eternity versus Absolute (mathematical) Space–time versus geological, time created/numerical versus relative time chrono-biological and phenomenological time versus numerical time Causality Cyclical teleology Chronological, non- Mechanical, uniform teleology Statistical probabilities uniform teleology and uncertainties 123 606 Evol Biol (2016) 43:604–637 cosmologies of the Middle Ages, and their influence well a macroscale, and recursively earth on a mesoscale, is a extends to the rise of Natural History Research. solid living body made up of the elements on a microscale. Although Plato and his student Aristotle vary in their Fire and earth give visibility and tangibility, and air and teachings in great detail, both share a basic intellectual water become intermediary binding elements with “air structure whereupon they build their cosmology. This basic being to water as fire to air, and water being to earth as air intellectual structure has precursors in non-Western cos- to water”. According to Aristotle, the elements also have mologies which we do not discuss in this section but we temperaments or temperatures, earth is cold, fire is warm, will briefly mention them in the next. Instead, here we water is wet and air is dry. Plato (Timaeus 53c–56) states focus on how the common structure defines their notions that all elements are made up of solid bodies where “depth on time and causality. should be bounded